1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for accessing information over a communication network and, more particularly, to a conversational portal employing a conversational browser to provide services such as conversational browsing and multimedia access on demand.
2. Description of Related Art
The computing world is evolving towards an era where billions of interconnected pervasive clients will communicate with powerful information servers. Indeed, this millennium will be characterized by the availability of multiple information devices that make ubiquitous information access an accepted fact of life. This evolution towards billions of pervasive devices being interconnected via the Internet, wireless networks or spontaneous networks (such as Bluetooth and Jini) will revolutionize the principles underlying man-machine interaction. In the near future, personal information devices will offer ubiquitous access, bringing with them the ability to create, manipulate and exchange any information anywhere and anytime using interaction modalities most suited to the user's current needs and abilities. Such devices will include familiar access devices such as conventional telephones, cell phones, smart phones, pocket organizers, PDAs and PCs, which vary widely in the interface peripherals they use to communicate with the user. At the same time, as this evolution progresses, users will demand a consistent look, sound and feel in the user experience provided by these various information devices.
The increasing availability of information, along with the rise in the computational power available to each user to manipulate this information, brings with it a concomitant need to increase the bandwidth of man-machine communication. The ability to access information via a multiplicity of appliances, each designed to suit the user's specific needs and abilities at any given time, necessarily means that these interactions should exploit all available input and output (I/O) modalities to maximize the bandwidth of man-machine communication. Indeed, users will come to demand such multi-modal interaction in order to maximize their interaction with information devices in hands-free, eyes-free environments.
Unfortunately, the current infrastructure is not entirely configured for providing seamless, multi-modal access to information. Indeed, although a plethora of information can be accessed from servers over a network using an access device (e.g., personal information and corporate information available on private networks and public information accessible via a global computer network such as the Internet), the availability of such information may be limited by the modality of the client/access device or the platform-specific software applications with which the user is interacting to obtain such information.
By way of example, currently, there are various types of portals (or gateways) that may be accessed on various networks to obtain desired information. For instance, well-known WWW (world wide web) portals include Yahoo! (which is open to the Internet and open to users) and AOL (which is open to the Internet and allows subscribing users to access proprietary content). These portals typically include a directory of Web sites, a search engine, news, weather information, e-mail, stock quotes, etc. Unfortunately, typically only a client/access device having full GUI capability can take advantage of such Web portals for accessing information.
Other portals include wireless portals that are typically offered by telephone companies or wireless carriers (which provide proprietary content to subscribing users). These wireless portals may be accessed by a client/access device having limited GUI capabilities declaratively driven by languages such as WML (wireless markup language) or CHTML (compact hypertext markup language). These wireless portals, however, do not offer seamless multi-modal access such as voice and GUI, since a separate voice mode is used for human communication and a separate and distinct mode is used for WAP (wireless application protocol) access and WML browsing.
In addition, IVR services and telephone companies can provide voice portals (which provide proprietary content to subscribing users) having only speech I/O capabilities. With a voice portal, a user may access an IVR service or perform voice browsing using a speech browser. Unfortunately, a client/access device having only GUI capability would not be able to directly access information from a voice portal. Likewise, a client/access device having only speech I/O would not be able to access information in a GUI modality. Therefore, the bandwidth of man-machine communication is currently limited, for example, by the available I/O modalities of the client/access device and the format of the content stored in the server providing the information.
Other information sources that are currently available include the various service providers that provide access to radio and television (TV) programs (e.g., broadcasters, cable and satellite service providers). Many of these service providers offer interactive TV and broadcast programs on demand. The conventional methods for providing interactive TV and broadcast programs on demand, however, all rely on selection by the user of a particular program from a given set of catalogs. For example, a user can select to begin viewing a specific movie at a given time by individually ordering the movie. Alternatively, the user can join new broadcasts starting at certain time (e.g., every quarter hour).
With interactive TV, using services such as WebTV etc., the user can follow links associated with the program (e.g., URL to web pages) to access related meta-information (i.e., any relevant information such as additional information or raw text of a press release or pages of involved companies or parties, etc.). Other interactive TV uses include, for example, sending feedback to the broadcaster who can poll the viewer's opinion, selecting a video or film to view from a central bank of films, or modifying the end of the movie or program based on the viewer's request. Both WebTV and Interactive TV services utilize a set-top box or special set-top unit that connects to a television set. In addition, pay-per-view television, as well as TV services where viewers can vote (via telephone or the web) to select the next movie, can be considered as other forms of interactive TV. In all such cases, however, the level of personalization that may be achieved, for example, is very limited.
On the Internet, various web sites (e.g., Bloomberg TV or Broadcast.com) provide broadcasts from existing radio and television stations using streaming sound or streaming media techniques. Web broadcasts that use web-based video stream and audio streaming rely on pre-compiled video radio clip that the user can download and play a local machine such as a television or personal computer using, e.g., Realnetworks Player or Microsoft Windows Media Player. Indeed, in a WebTV interactive TV environment, the downloaded streamed program can be played on the TV.
In teletext systems, catalogs of ASCII meta information are downloaded with a TV program to the user's TV or set-top box. The user can then select desired items that are later downloaded. Eventually, new set-top boxes will offer the capability to store compressed versions of a program on a local hard disk or memory system to offer services such as pause or instant replay during a program.
Although the multimedia services described above allow users to download programs of interest, these services do not offer the user the capability to access a true broadcast on demand service, where the user is able to compose his radio or TV program based on his interest.
There is a need therefore for a system and method that provides multi-modal access to any information source (e.g., the WWW), from any location, at anytime, through any type of client/access device, so as to retrieve desired information and/or build a personalized broadcast program on demand, as well as manage and modify the program at any time.